So, anyway……I got a tetanus shot booster three days ago and my arm has been hurting ever since! Finally hurting less and I now have hope that it will stop hurting very soon. Also have been feeling a little achy/fevery and a lot tired – maybe related, maybe not. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another one. I bet if you got a deep wound of some kind they’d end up giving you the shot again anyway. Ah, well, maybe it’s all worth it.

How this relates to the flower pictured here, I cannot say. Maybe it’s a reminder of the cycles of life and this too shall pass and stuff like that. Yeah, that’s it!

I feel humbled lately by my own vulnerability and it focuses my attention on how impatient I sometimes am with the missteps and mistakes of others — as if I am so completely centered at all times. I am not. And sometimes I just catch a break and for that, I am grateful. What if I am neither as wonderful or hopelessly inadequate as I respectively and alternately think I am? In other words: I like grape jelly.

Remind your second-guessing brain that enough is enough and even if you weren’t great, the best or even okay it’s okay and you are in there trying, and that is good enough. Make friends with good enough.

Ayn Rand and the Catholic proselytizers (not necessarily in that order)

got me way too fixated on perfection.

Let it be what it is. Perfection is not even a reasonable goal for brilliant people, never mind, me.

Since I have a predilection to worry and fret, that is what I usually do.

I would like to find a way replace that predilection with something that feels better

When I worry and even wonder excessively about what will happen, what already did, or what I should or shouldn’t say, it provides no comfort or joy.

Sometimes I begin to understand that whatever happens, I will manage. I will fear no man or woman and I will remember that my intentions are good and my work is verifiable. And if that is not enough, I can move on. Whatever happens, I can be pretty damn happy. As Abraham Lincoln once said, “A man is just about as happy as he makes his mind up to be.”

I was just about to explain the “plateau” effect that most diets lead to – so gather round.Anybody?Bueller?

This is where you lose a few pounds and then hit a wall and just can’t seem to lose any more weight. I cannot guarantee that this won’t happen to you on this “not a diet” plan, but I can guarantee that it might not happen. I don’t really know yet because I have not been at it long enough to see whether or not it will happen. I think it won’t happen because I am going with the theory that if you actually get into the pattern of eating less than you used to eat, and if you eat real food and good food for most of your meals, you will achieve an optimum weight because that’s what happens when you are very aware, attentive, and mindful of what you are eating. You may be asking yourself, by what authority does she make this statements, and to that I would say: I actually have no authority, just opinions, it would seem.

Oh, as to exercise. When you read about it in most books, the suggestion is that you “work-out” three to five times a week for an hour, and include aerobic stuff and strength training, run a marathon, join a health club (and actually go to it) – you know, outlandish stuff like that. Now, I’m not gonna’ lie to you. You probably are supposed to do things like that in order to achieve optimal health and to tone up and feel better. I’m not going to suggest you don’t engage in such activities. What I am going to suggest is that you start out by doing something, anything, that encourages you to move more than you currently do.

It seems inconceivable to me that the choices are to work out for an hour a day or do nothing – and that anything in between is unhelpful. My Mom, for instance, started walking a mile a day a few years ago, and now we don’t know where the hell she is. (That just is not true.) Seriously, I started walking a mile a day and my blood pressure went down and my mood went up. It works. And I’m not suggesting any crazy walking – you know, like that pretentious power walking, or walking with weights a.k.a. soup cans, or walking while swinging your arms at crazy angles, or doing some wiggly jogging-walking combo thing while keeping your elbows crooked and your wrists limp, or walking quickly while hula-hooping. (Any more than I’d suggest riding a large tricycle while wearing some kind of awful helmet with a lightening bolt stenciled on it.) You’ll just make yourself an object of ridicule. But I digress.

Here’s the idea: If you don’t take walks at all, take one. Even if it’s just getting up from your desk more often or walking to the mailbox, or walking into the bank or into a restaurant instead of using the drive thru. Then gradually add more and more moves — if you tell yourself you must walk or run five miles or it won’t count, than you might choose to do nothing and then you’re stuck. Start where you are. If you already walk a mile a day then, add some other movement. It could be you will want to do more if you don’t pressure yourself to follow unrealistic plans. You’ll feel better. I’m pretty sure about that. Check with your doctor before walking into the bank instead of using the drive thru as any changes in activity or diet might need doctor approval if you have some situation I don’t know anything about. All the books say that, honestly. I read one that recommended eating more blueberries and other fruits and then cautioned the reader to check with the doctor first. Really? For blueberries?

It seems that exercise does not ensure weight loss. It could be fun or healthy or possibly even necessary, but it won’t ensure weight loss. Eating less food and/or real food will ensure weight loss. This isn’t just me talking. It’s science. Oh, wait, it is just me talking, but it’s possible that it’s science, too.

I’ve heard that metabolism does affect ability to lose weight, but only within about ten pounds or so unless you have a serious metabolic disorder. I don’t know if this is true, but if ten pounds were my problem, I would not really have a problem now would I? So metabolism be damned – I will achieve a weight that is more acceptable to me. For me, this means I shall not waddle. I mean it – it just makes me mad to think that would be my fate. I draw the line here. _______________________________________________ See that?

—Okay, I drew the line. It’s out there.

Point to ponder: If you see a fork in the road, take it. What does this mean?

I will stop for now because I would like to go get something to eat. I know what you’re thinking: It’s after 10:00 pm and you’re not supposed to eat after so late at night . That, my friend, is conventional wisdom and if I am anything, I am not conventional. I don’t go in for that stuff. You know, no food after 7, no white food after labor day, that kind of thing. It depends what you’ve eaten all day long. If you tend to get heartburn, don’t eat too late in the evening — and seriously, I’m not talking about eating ginormous amounts of food, for crying out loud. If you’ve eaten enough already, then don’t eat after 7 pm, but if, as in my case, you have not, then have a small bowl of Kix with a little bit of banana in it. And be sure the bowl is blue. No, wait, pink. Pink or white, you choose. Or blue. I think blue would really be the way to go.

RECIPE for Vegetable soup made out of stuff that I had available: Just threw it all together. 1/2 cup or so of chopped up onion, stalk of celery, a carrot, 1/2 of an orange pepper, clove of garlic. Sauteed all that in a little vegetable broth then threw in the rest of the leftover broth (about a cup). Added in a cup or two of water, 1 cup of frozen peas, 1 cup of leftover green beans and a can of pinto beans. For spices: 1/4 tsp paprika, 1/8 teaspoon turmeric; 1/4 tsp chili powder; 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder; 1/8 teaspoon onion powder; a few dashes of Italian seasoning and 1/2 cup of leftover spaghetti sauce and, voile! there is soup.

Serving suggestion: Topped each serving bowl with fresh chives right from my garden. Easy to grow, prolific and pretty.

Sort of a therapeutic process – chopping and sauteing and making good use of bits and pieces.

I just read that when a person dreams about losing control of the car it means they are dealing with an out of control situation in real life.

Really? Did we need a dream interpreter to figure that one out?

Seems to me that life itself is an out-of-control situation. Which is why we’re having strange dreams in the first place! Everyday and at every moment, anything can happen and our control or lack there-of is a constant.

People are pretty amazing and brave, going through life with the awareness of our eventual or even imminent demise.

Which is why I want to come to grips with my limited control. Act when I can, and accept when I cannot effect change. It ain’t easy. Being in the moment and vigilantly mindful of all the good stuff becomes dramatically important.

On challenging days, even the most taken for granted blessings need to be absorbed and cherished. Let nothing be unacknowledged.

And let nothing be deemed permanent. No matter how bad, it will not be all there is. That is not the way of the world. All things must pass and that’s sometimes the only comfort.

If today is good, wallow in that and try not to miss it by focusing on all that can go wrong. Causing the very fearful and dreadful feelings you are trying to avoid in the first place. Seems so obvious. Let it unfold instead of contriving to control and anticipate every eventuality.

It might seem like holding on tightly will provide more control, but that is not the way it works – that might be one of those things that just needs to be accepted as a metaphysical reality, no matter how counter-intuitive it may feel. How many times do you keep walking into that wall before you just step around it? It is what it is — whether it seems likely or not. This is my advice to me.

May the new year be a path to joy and peace …..and whatever happens next.